What drives our curriculum?

As a staff, we have spent a great deal of time developing a curriculum that is both relevant and exciting for the children, as well as being in line with the National Curriculum. We are passionate about what we teach and believe that all of our pupils should access a broad and balanced curriculum.

Implementation

We have devised exciting themes and, where possible, teach subjects through these themes.

We have chosen three key drivers which are reflected within each of the topics that we cover:

Opportunities - this encompasses our desire to introduce the children to as many possibilities as possible. We will enhance this through inviting speakers into school, as well as going on school trips.

Community - we are at the heart of a lovely school community, but want the children to learn about and understand the wider communities they are part of, both in the UK and the wider global community. We believe we have a responsibility to help children understand and embrace diversity.

Creativity - we aim to be as creative as possible in how we teach our children, but also want to encourage their creativity across the curriculum.

For how our drivers relate to our topics, please look at the topic webs saved in the website area for each class.

We aim for all of our pupils to access the curriculum and support children who may have difficulties with this through scaffolding their learning. We encourage pupils to actively engage with their next steps and to make choices about their learning through e.g. our bronze, silver and gold tasks.

From February 2020 we are starting to embed the MindUp programme and as this develops within school it will also become one of our drivers.

Impact

We want children to leave Cookham Rise with a combination of skills and knowledge that will serve them well on the next steps of their journey. We recognise that this comes from a broad curriculum offering alongside the teaching of British Values and life skills as well as good physical and mental health.